Loading
Dark and brooding, Yair Etziony's latest, Ingress, is a grim, futuristic soundscape that picks up the mantle from his previous two releases since relocating to Berlin. Using analog oscillators, filters, and VCA's, Yair gives Ingress an older, comfortable feel instrumentally, while moving forward through the future with layers, drones, and sonic evolution. Recorded while he was ill and hospitalized twice, the darkness of situation, along with his normal themes of death, decay, and ruins is very prevalent in the music.
So do you enjoy inept, bumbling, and often thickly cheese layered 1980’s bad action cinema?!…then you’ll lap-up Savage Harbor like a coked-up mad man. What we have here is glorious pile-up of dumb mulleted heroes, croaky & sleazed bad guys, and ditsy broads who are either getting beaten, in sexy underwear or taking their tops off. All rippled with cack-handed fighting, silly gun play & badly timed squib explosion,over long dwells in toe-curling & overtly soft focused romantic moments, and sudden dips into cheap screen effects, & one moment of what-the-hell 80’s surrealisms. On Vinegar Syndrome here's a tasty Blu ray reissue of the film- featuring VS classy new scan of the film, a few extras, a groovy & glossy double-sided poster, and a neat thick card slip-sleeve.
Hailing from the Spanish Canary Islands, the irreligious outsider cult of Deathwomb spits out their debut album Moonless Night Sacraments. This power-trio plays a beastly hybrid of sulphurous Black Metal and lycanthropic Death Metal, proving their unwavering love for traditional, unrepentant and ruthlessly raged extreme metal. The album features ten songs of powerful primitivism and each piece is a piercing whip after the other... The production sounds very dark, raw and old-fashioned, while the lyrics deal with the themes of Satanism, Occultism and the Path of the Left Hand.The album was released on the Iron Bonehead label and is available on CD as well as on Vinyl.
You Have Options is the product of a new trio ensemble from clarinettist Francois Houle, piannist Alexander Hawkins and drummer Harris Eisenstadt. While I have heard several albums in which Harris Eisenstadt serves as bandleader and primary composer, in this group, all 3 members have shared compositional duties. The group also contributes interpretations of classics by Charles Ives and Steve Lacy.
Gruesome Mutilation Vol1 is the first in the series of double CDR splits from German label Meat Hook Butchery. It brings together two album-length selections of often rough-shod & lo-fi walled noise brutality from two seasoned scene-sters…we have Michigan based Paranoid Time, and Germanys Cannibal Ritual.
Here we have a double CD section of modern compositions/ often angular drone interpretations of the work of Viola Torros- a mysterious female Indian musician from the late Vedic period (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE) who was born somewhere in the Indus valley region- then travelled around Indian playing her compositions.
Here from Arrow Video- both in the US & Uk, is the long-anticipated second volume of American Horror Project- which sees the label offering up three lessen known slices of regional US horror cinema, that are all decidedly distinctive, often arty & frequently unbalancing examples of the genre. The finished set features a sturdy box, with each of the Blu Rays coming in it's own cases- then the set is topped off with a sixty-page booklet.
Dynamic, physical, and explosive, Bow Gamelan Ensemble have mixed art and noise since their inception in 1983. Using ordinary objects as well as specially made instruments to create their works, Bow Gamelan Ensemble have made their mark on the performance art world with vivid, compelling performances. Noisy and chaotic, Cold Spring released the 30th anniversary edition of Great Noises That Fill the Air, and did this in conjunction with the Cooper Gallery Dundee's Bow Gamelan Ensemble retrospective of the same name.
Here Jonas Rönnberg (Varg) puts out the solo debut of his FLORA band mate Melina Åkerman Kvie on his Northern Electronics label. She has also previously collaborated with the Swedish producer on last year's Welcoming Elegance record. Like those collaborations Ruin Walls mixes Scandinavian ambient sounds and dead eyed techno with melancholic pop sensibilities.
Of all the bands to appear out of the 1970’s/ 1980’s NWOBHM scene Newcastle's Raven were the most punchy, energetic, and at times unforgiving- the band’s early work was labelled ‘athletic rock’, and went onto influence a host of bands from the then up & coming thrash movement- with projects such as Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Kreator, & many more quoting the band. Here from Cherry Red's metal sub-label HNE Recordings- is a four-CD box set bringing together the band first four albums that were released of the cult UK Neat- who put out classic records from the likes of Venom, Cloven Hoof, Wishbone Ash, Tygers of Pan Tang.
Earth are the band Dylan Carlson has bestowed upon the world and we’re damned lucky to have them. Formed in Olympia Washington in 1989, Earth have continued to grow and evolve from the drone metal beginnings of their classic debut album Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version into something that draws from a vast wellspring of musical influences that includes country, jazz and folk music. Full Upon Her Burning Lips is the band’s ninth full length studio album and the first to see the band reduced down to core duo of Carlson on guitar and bass and Adrienne Davies on drums and percussion. This stripped back line-up has led to the band adopting a similarly reductive style, stripping away some of the sonic layers that have made up the band’s sound on previous albums and taking them into new territory.
Philosopher and musician David Rothenberg has had a fascinating and singular career. Through his many books and recordings Rothenberg has forged a niche for himself as something of an interspecies musicologist. Beginning with his first book Why Birds Sing: A Journey Into the Mystery of Bird Song he has explored both human and animal relationships to sound and the environment by way of mutual song. This has on several occasions - as it does here on his fourth outing for Gruenrekorder - taken the form of actually playing along with the calls of animals. Nightingale Cities is a sprawling 2CD collection of recordings of Rothenberg and others improvising with those birds in and around Berlin and Helsinki. The release coincides with the publication of a book of the same name.
Part American satire, part twisted modern fairy tale, and part building psycho drama- Track 29 was the 1988 pairing of two of Britain’s great & creative figures of the large & small screen- film director Nicolas Roeg (Performance, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth), and TV screenwriter Denis Potter( The Singing Detective, Pennies From Heaven, Lipstick On Your Collar). Here From Powerhouse is a much deserved Blu Ray reissue of this darkly quirky & distinctive 1980’s picture- offering a nice new print, a new commentary track, and a handful of extras.
L'Enfer à sa source is the 8th full-length album from French project K.F.R- and what we have here is an extremely noisy, soured, often slurred and at-times crudely ritual take on the black metal form. The album comes in the form of a 12” vinyl release on Purity Through Fire, and is ltd to 199 copies.
The Polish black metal scene is quite extensive and has some really cult and famous acts within it, such as Behemoth, Crist Agony, Graveland, the now very fashionable Batushka and so on. A number of these groups have been playing since the early nineties and are veterans of the Polish black metal scene. However, they are not the ones with whom it all began.
Sonically suffocating, full of self-doubt, and self-disgust Nothing you do will ever matter. Nothing. Ever is the first new full length in six years from American Power Electronics project Slogun aka New Yorker John Balistreri. The project started off, and become infamous for its true-crime ridged PE- but this new album is very much a journey inwards.
Zurich-based sound artist, Simon Grab, releases his first EP on -OUS records with Extinction. The opening salvo from his long term project, Pulse, Grab sculpts electronic and apocalyptic soundscapes for a post-human world. Recorded as a live session, Extinction captures the ephemeral sonic output as it pours forth, adding an honesty and urgency to the mix.
Edwin Brienen is one of the more fascinating & unapologetically brash figures to appear out of European cinema in the last twenty years- his work is often edgy, controversial, and at times mocking of both himself & wider art cinema. Though sadly he never seems to have got the praise of the likes of Lars von Trier or Michael Haneke- here on Brink is a region free Blu Ray boxset bringing together five of his films- so hopefully this will help get his name out there.
III is the latest release from the anonymous US noise act Sacro E Profano- the project brings together elements moody walled noise, ANW, DNW, and an often sleazed/ subtle unsettling atmosphere. This release from May of this year came in form of a physical release, or digital download- the psychical release had an edition of sixteen copies- but these are all sold out now…so ones only option now is the digital download.
From Vinegar Syndrome- those seekers of prime exploitation oddness & retro sleaze here’s Evil Town- a puzzling, at times delirious blend of creepy town chillier, hammy mad doctor action, and unapologetic ‘n’ leering sleaze. Here we get a Blu ray presentation of the film that features a new 2K scan, a few extras, a doubled sided glossy poster- and another great & arty slip sleeve ltd to 2,500 hand numbered copies.
Former Gorgoroth and God Seed frontman Gaahl’s current outfit Wyrd are being hailed as producing some of the best music the black metal scene has to offer today. Formed in 2015 the band are made up of the great and good from the Scandinavian metal scene, bassist Eld (Frode Kilvik) has played as part of Taake’s live band, guitarist Lust Kilman (Ole Walaunet) has a rather fine pedigree having played with Grimfist, God Seed, Sahg and Audrey Horne to name but a few, whilst drummer Spektre (Kevin Kvåle) has played with Harm, Svartelder and Horizon Ablaze among others.
Infinite Undo severs up three twenty six minute examples of walled noise- these move from dense & swirling suffocating, through to bleakly tunneling, onto slurred & crushingly bass bound wall-making. The release appears in the form of a CDR on UK’s Void Singularity recordings- and as of this review, the label still has copies.
Sonic Pornography for the Now Generation is a three-track wall noise release from this Portland Oregano based project. We get two half an hour walls, and one fifteen wall- so you get in total seventy-five minutes of noise. The sound here moves between thick and densely roasting, to bleak and decidedly grimly lo-fi. This release appeared in April of this year as both a CDR & digital release- with an edition of 10 copies, and as of this review, the label still has copies left.
Norwegien experimental guitarist and avant garde composer Håvard Volden is a longtime member of various ensembles, based in Oslo since 2006. The exact size of his discography is unclear due to his many collaborative works, but this is apparently his 2nd solo album, according to the press release.